Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!cos!howard From: howard@COS.COM (Howard C. Berkowitz) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Ph.D.'s and Teaching Message-ID: <834@cos.COM> Date: 22 Jan 88 14:04:41 GMT References: <2144@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> <115@mccc.UUCP> <3469@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> <2060@pdn.UUCP> Organization: Corporation for Open Systems, McLean, VA Lines: 77 Summary: Viewgraphs and Handouts: The Curse I give frequent technical presentations at seminars and conferences, and am becoming increasingly furious at the demand of organizers for advance copies of my visuals. Aside from the logistical nightmare which can accompany bringing 200 copies of a 40-page document on a flight, I find that advance handouts interfere with the quality of presentation. Others dislike them as well, perhaps not for the same reasons: In article <2060@pdn.UUCP>, reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: > In article <261@tmsoft.UUCP> mason@tmsoft.UUCP (Dave Mason) writes: > > >PRETTY BORING. I like a VERY loose teaching style... maybe some notes, > >or a few minutes before class (often in the halls on the way to class :-) > >thinking about what I want to cover, then a willingness to go on a > >tangent if it seems helpful in class. > Yup, me too. Too often I find that the person who is so organized and > prepared with lots of view graphs, etc..... can not deviate from the prepared > script. Too often you find TAs teaching this way. I have also run into this > in industry class settings. The overhead projector is one piece of equipment > that I absolutely hate with a passion. If one uses it rather than the black- > board because it is easier for everyone in the roon to see, fine! But if you > are just going to put stuff up there and expect the students to copy it into > their notes, why not just provide a handout. Why waste time with all the > writing :-) Seriously, I also hated it when people gave me a handout to go > with the viewgraphs. I can get just as much out of a book. > > Today for example, I had a fairly (unusually :-) solid idea of what I > >wanted to talk about, and how I was going to present it. Somebody > >asked a question (looking for an example), and after about 15 seconds > >thinking, I structured the lecture around an example I had just thought > >of which, I feel, made for a much better class than the one I had > >planned. > I like this guy! Although I tried to have a rough outline and some > rough notes available, if we went out on a tanget (but not astray) great! > It showed that someone was interested in the class (and hopefully everyone > else). It is a bit more of a strain on the instructor because it can show > weaknesses, but what the heck you can't know everything. Even when I am presenting a formal paper, I am willing to deviate from my planned presentation flow if questions (or glazed looks) during the talk seem to dictate such a deviation. There are those who complain when the presentation does not follow the published paper; I respond only that the presentation typically is six months more recent than the final paper sent to the conference. In an industrial context (I don't have sufficiently recent academic experience to judge), if I give out advance handouts, the audience tends to follow the paper copy, not the presentation. Many conference and seminar organizers demand the handouts "so the attendees may take notes on them." How real is this need? I'll happily provide notebook paper if they need it! :-) An extreme problem of advance text comes when I want to use surprise and/or humor in the presentation, sometimes with technical material, sometimes with flourishes. To cite an absurd but useful example, I frequently give a seminar on "The Practicality of OSI Today." (Note: it is.) Many audiences come with a feeling of burnout from sales hype, and it is important to deflate this. After I am introduced, I begin with an increasingly irrational, worst-of-TV-evangelist style presentation of outrageously wonderful things OSI communications will do for the audience. After about 30 seconds, or when enough faces show total disbelief, I turn on the overhead, talking all the while, with a slide: "The Speaker is Lying." It is not noticed at first, giggles begin to break out, and, within another 30 seconds, I have a roaring audience's complete attention. Should I give out this first slide in the advance text, as some demented organizers have requested? A lesser problem of handouts is that they may not be meaningful, or may actively be misleading, outside the context of the presentation. I structure my visuals as adjuncts to presentations, not as pseudo-publications. -- -- howard(Howard C. Berkowitz) @cos.com {uunet, decuac, sun!sundc, hadron, hqda-ai}!cos!howard (703) 883-2812 [ofc] (703) 998-5017 [home] DISCLAIMER: I explicitly identify COS official positions.